Here we are, landing for the first time in the country where we’re going to live from now on.

(CC BY-ND) Photos credits - Marion Plisson

Our container is scheduled to arrive later, our cat Pearl is in the cargo fo our plane. We go through customs and immigration with the usual stress of the immigrant entering a foreign. The damp heat is palpable even with the airport insulation. We’re all excited and tired by the long flight but very optimistic that we’ve made a good choice for our family.

The first taxi, first language encounter, we need to pick up our cat at the cargo terminal… Easy to explain, with no address, just the name of the company that has our cat…! Our Vinasun driver is very kind and does his best to help us, figuring out where we need to go and later talking for us to the customs. The taxi finally parks at the cargo building. During the ride, we started to experience Saigon: overwhelming, hot, vibrant, different, exhilarating !

We’re worried about our cat, she’s been in cargo for a very long time now. The cargo facility is desert, we arrived on a Sunday ! Only a guard at the entrance… Our taxi driver saves the day, he finds someone to take our demand, we pay a fee for customs but the cat is not released, we’re not sure if she’s even in there but it seems she is… We don’t know if she gets water or food at least. We learn that she is in the big warehouse where we’re at… Luckily, to send her to Vietnam we had to use a vietnamese veterinarian, we contact him and he will make sure Pearl gets water and food during the night. In deed, we are told to come back tomorrow, Monday, to be able to get her out of customs. I’ll tell you about this episode at the customs in a later post.

We are now exhausted, worried about our cat and on our way to the apartment we rented for the first weeks, until we find a place to rent. A couple of french people are subleasing us their apartment while they are on vacation. It’s located in a big expat building, in district 2, and known by taxi drivers ! We finally put our suitcases down in the living room and our welcomed by a terrific view of Saigon.

(CC BY-ND) Photos credits — Marion Plisson

Not bad for our first impression. The river pass through, powerful and majestic. The modern houses in front, play replicas of foreign suburbs. The skyscrapers indicates the move to capitalist modernity. And all the intermediate type of housing show the diversity of the population. On the left, an untouched area keeps its nature elements, for how long…